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What’s Up South of Boston

An events listing of what people are doing in the towns of Hingham, Weymouth, Hull, Scituate, and Cohasset.

Cohasset Selectmen attempt to restrain press

September 19, 2012

I’m listening to my recording of the Cohasset Selectmen’s meeting early Wednesday morning, around 1 a.m., the time when I am able to think. I discover that Peter DeCaprio (of Cohasset Water Dept. fame) is reading my nasty E-mails aloud – many of which are to other people!! Egads! Wish I had known the Selectmen’s Civil Discourse agenda item was going to be about me. Why wasn’t I forewarned? Should I demand equal time?

As I have reported before, I am very fond of Peter DeCaprio, Chairman of the Cohasset Water Commission. He’s wicked smart, and he truly has done a lot for the water department. He says. Although I’d still like to know what three separate sets of concession contracts cost the Town. And some other stuff. I am hopefully getting this information through the Acting Town Manager (ATM) who is not as volatile as DeCaprio. However, the ATM has not yet delivered anything, but then some of my questions are hard. Like under what legal authority is the town being run these days? I first asked that on Sept. 7.

My God! I don’t know who is making personal threats against Diane Kennedy. Certainly not me. Early Tuesday morning I got a call from Diane’s bookkeeper at the Hingham Community Center. Diane is Executive Director there and she’s dong a dynamite job.

Everybody says so.

But Tuesday morning Diane’s bookkeeper had enough of the fresh Gazette, which featured on its front page an excellent editorial by me about how the Cohasset Selectmen “may” have written an illegal contract with their acting town manager.

We have been delivering the Tinytown Gazette to the Hingham Community Center for 20 years. The day I write the editorial on the front page the Center’s bookkeeper becomes outraged and leaves a message on my phone that there is no longer any room for us at the Center.

I call the bookkeeper back and say OK, but I want my Tinytown Gazettes back. And by the way, who is chairman of the board of directors these days? I want to know. I am gong to write a letter to the board of directors about our being thrown out after all these years. That’s all. Of course they can do it, I just don’t like being thrown out of anywhere for discussing ideas in the marketplace.

Back to DeCaprio, who is blabbing on and on about me at the Selectmen’s meeting. He says I have orchestrated a campaign over a long period of time against him.

Selectmen say they are really nice people and have always maintained civil discourse. Sure.

Only Selectmen are not nice people.

In the last year they have ruined several careers. Police Chief Mark DeLuca is the last in a series. NOT ONE SELECTMAN would meet with DeLuca to hear his side of the story. NOT ONE

Selectmen are serial “killers” of municipal careers.

If Selectmen want to set an example – obey the laws of the land, dudes, and we’ll write nice stories about you.

Yeah, it’s hard to be town officials when you break all the laws all the time. It’s especially hard on me to have to constantly complain about selectmen. I don’t want to become Marjorie Nugent.

It’s Constitution Week. Selectpeople don’t scare me, but they scare a lot of people with their Prior Restraint rule…that means an attempt by the Selectmen, to prevent the expression of ideas before they are published. Under the First Amendment, prior restraint is clearly unconstitutional.

Let’s take a TIME OUT Selectmen say. Why would that be? So you can sign your possibly illegal contract with the Acting Town Manager without comment?

“Selectmen shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” and that is just what they are attempting to do to town employees and elected and appointed boards. And they will be successful until someone calls the ACLU.

The Tinytown Gazette and Tinytown Unleashed are opinion newspapers. Peter DeCaprio has a standing invitation to be an author on Tinytown Unleashed. He continually refuses because he would have to sign his name. He prefers to write his anonymous crap on the Cohasset Mariner’s site.